


A Hard Day's Night

by TheSmudgyOne



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1884141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSmudgyOne/pseuds/TheSmudgyOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a rewriting of a certain part of chapter 51 of The Dream Thieves....from Noah's perspective.</p>
<p>Invisible Noah.<br/>Bittersweet.</p>
<p>Contains spoilers for The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves.</p>
<p>The Raven Cycle books and all characters belong to Maggie Stiefvater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hard Day's Night

Noah lay in the backseat of Gansey's car, invisible. He could see Gansey's hands as he drove, tight on the wheel. Blue's head was tilted, leaned against the window and turned to the side. Noah could just see the edge of her closed eye, and the muscles in her neck and jaw. As Gansey talked, his hands became looser on the wheel, and Blue's face relaxed. Gansey talked and talked to Blue until the windows of the car were slightly fogged. They were their own world.  
Noah could see tufts of Blue's hair peeking out from the side of the headrest. She smelled like weird herbs, and more than anything in the world, he wanted to reach out one finger and touch the tip of a tuft of her hair.   
" _Community_ college!" Gansey exclaimed, startling Noah from his reverie. Gansey filled those two words with all the fervor of a parent who had spent an entire lifetime imagining impossibly brilliant futures for their child. Except for the fact that he kept looking at Blue in a way that was not even remotely parental.  
Noah kept watching Blue's hair, but he kept still.

The sky turned from purple to black, dotted with stars. Now they were outside Gansey's car. They stared at each other with an expression Noah felt sure he'd seen before, but could not place. Then Blue touched Gansey's neck, right above the collar of his royal-blue shirt, and Noah remembered where he had seen that look. It was the look Ronan had on his face when he woke and saw the blue flower he had first pulled out of his dreams.  
Then -- something. A ripple of energy.   
Noah tilted his head. Listened. And for a second, he heard it. A far-off sound, just a tiny snatch of something. Something man-made, and intrusive to this mint-and-herbs dreamworld of theirs. A glimpse of litter in a garden. Noah walked towards it. He heard Gansey say to Blue,  
"I know. I wouldn't." So softly, gently.  
Noah started running. But he knew that wouldn't be fast enough. He squeezed his eyes shut, imagined the direction of the sound, and dematerialized.

He popped up a little ways back on the winding road they'd taken to get there. He was still invisible. And he was about twenty feet from a group of scrawny teens. They had made a mess of a clearing off the side of the road. Bottles. Cans. The smell of cigarettes. And piled at their feet, some sort of fireworks. There were no markings on the wrappers except the silhouette of a dragon. Kavinsky's work. They would be seen and heard for miles.  
A kid in a backwards baseball cap picked up a box of matches.  
If they set those off, Blue and Gansey would freeze. They'd get back in the car and fumble their seatbelts and make polite, stilted conversation for a week. Noah could go to 300 Fox Way tomorrow, and bring a dvd of Frozen to watch with Blue, and pet her hair and lay his head on her shoulder and sprinkle glitter on her nose.  
But....  
Noah, still invisible, walked up to the kid with the matches. He got right behind him. Right up to his ear.  
He couldn't think of what to say - he was not that kind of ghost! - so he began to sing.  
 _"_ _It's been a hard day's night  
And I've been working like a dog."_  
It was not even a remotely creepy song. It was also not a remotely cool song. But it was all he could think of. He sang louder.  
 _"It's been a hard day's night  
I should be sleeping like a log."_  
The kid looked around.  
"Who's singing?"  
 _"But when I get home to you  
and all the things that you do  
you make me feel alright."_  
All the kids were frozen now, breaths quickening.  
 _"_ _So why on earth should I moan_  
 _Cause when I get you alone_  
You know I feel okay."  
A shivering girl slowly, carefully set down a can at her feet. Like she was scared of waking up the earth.  
"I'm singing," Noah said. "I've been dead for seven years."  
When the kids cleared out, they left the fireworks behind on the damp grass.

When Noah reappeared next to Gansey's car, Blue and Gansey's faces were inches apart. They were perfectly still. There were a dozen fireflies resting on the trunk of the Pig, blinking gently.  
"And now," Gansey said to Blue, "we never speak of it again."  
Noah got in the car. He never spoke of it again.


End file.
